both men

It is to the caged hand

   the Arm extends,

           and whether up

       or up and over,

             both men 

                        sing.

This poem is about two men.  One is Gregory Petrov who died in a prison camp in Russia in the 1940's, praising God to the end.  The other man is someone who miraculously escaped and walked for many, many miles over the Siberian mountains to freedom.

In the midst of suffering, Gregory Petrov wrote one of the most beautiful Orthodox hymns I've ever heard:

 

http://www.saintjonah.org/services/thanksgiving.htm

peaceable kingdom

As a child, I used to be surprised and hurt that animals did not come closer. I constantly dreamed of little chickadees resting in my hand, squirrels perched on my shoulder, fawns nuzzling my cheek, but today with Anna the cat on my lap, longing for my touch, I am amazed that she trusts me at all. "We've killed your kind by the droves," I want to tell her. "We slash and burn your homes, we tie you up to work our fields, we eat you, turn you to glue-- why should you trust me?" And yet, as Scripture teaches us, all of the animal kingdom groans for the kingdom of God to come, for the princes and princesses, sons and daughters of God to be revealed. They hold no grudges, but I am not surprised that they are wired to run at the sound of my steps. And yet, here on my lap, nuzzling my cheek, is a first fruit, all fur and purr, of the peaceable kingdom.

 

These are not the rantings of a vegetarian animal activist, but just a musing of gratefulness and wonder that there is a life so other than me that lets me love it up close. Wonder too that God would allow His creatures to be subject to such frustration, would even call us to smear their innocent blood over our front doors, slit their throats at the temple until their life rushed out over our altars and we understood the cost of sin. And even now in factories, living in their own feces, or dying in polluted waters, being hunted to extinction, they display in graphic ways the cost of our sin and in doing so point us to the slain Lamb.

 

As I hold this cat, there are tens of thousands of chickens, bred too fat to walk, who are pumped full of chemicals that enable them to unnaturally survive their tortuous environment until they are slaughtered.  There, waiting in cages, they groan on my behalf, waiting for me to be revealed as glorious, spotless and pure. How is that fair? The answer is it's not, but this is the grace God gives to us through every living being, through the creation we were called to steward as a gardener but have plundered as a thief. Today during church a toddler suggested that we pray for giraffes. We laughed, of course, but it is no small thing.  Even on the African plains, the giraffe is my close companion in longing. Call me crazy, but my hope is that one day I will get to apologise to her and to God for the part I've played, and she will lick my face with her long black tongue. Until then, I will enjoy my cat and listen to the birds sing outside my window with wonder and delight.

onion

 

There was an old woman

who was greedy and cold

She was mean and she was spiteful

with eyes full of scorn.

And she lived by herself,

for herself, in her mind.

And she hated the world

for its dirt and its grime;

And she hated the world

for its dirt and its grime.

 

One day a beggar

came hungry and poor

and she beat him and bruised him;

she hollered and swore.

Yet as he turned slowly

from the house to the road,

she threw him an onion

and quick! slammed the door;

she threw him an onion

and quick! slammed the door.

 

Now the woman grew older

and one day she died,

as she sunk down to hades

an archangel cried,

"Grab hold of this onion

I have in my hand!

It will lift you to heaven

for Christ was that man;

it will lift you to heaven

for Christ was that man."

 

So children, listen closely,

our tale is now told,

love's not just a feeling

a warmth in our soul.

But love is an onion

that grows in the dirt,

its roots deep in heaven,

its roots deep in earth;

its roots deep in heaven,

its roots deep in earth.

 

 

This is a song I wrote based on a story that was based on a fable found in The Brother's Karamazov which might have been borrowed from an even older tale.  Below is a link to the Karamazov excerpt.  It has a different emphasis but is brilliant.  It's good to reclaim the art of storytelling.  Part of me is afraid of fables--what if people think that an onion is the path to salvation?--but this is fairly ridiculous.  Jesus loved telling parables that gave glimpses of the truth, while not explicitly addressing every theological implication.  On the other side, you have people who scorn fables because they do not reflect "real life."  But sometimes I think we need stories with obvious morals in order to reflect what real life really is when our lives feel a bit muddled.  So many stories now are about muddled people who are wandering through the muddled world.  I suppose we need all kinds!     

 

 http://threekeywords.com/quotes/top-posts/the-onion-a-fable-from-the-brothers-karamazov/  

joy

Teeth chattering

rattling cold bones

of a hungry throng

straining to hear

some hot word

trickle down

rumor of some

Man they heard

used to speak

a long time ago.

For years she waits

blue-lipped, cracked

hands tugging

at the sleaves

of a thread-bare faith,

until He came,

like an open flame,

close as a coal

held to her lips--

 

Come dance with me

my love, my lover,

my beloved lovely one--

be wrapped in robes

of my rejoicing, in life,

in light, in song.

homecoming

Scrape me small, O God,
   across your great
      mercy; your terrible
    and tender hands
       pressing down
            upon my hard heart,
               clod of clay
            crumbling through
                 wire crosses
                     of a seive,
                    baptised again,
                          with every
                                  tiny
                                         yes.

do not grind

Do not grind your mind
   on the failures of the day;
  you will only sharpen Death's
        voice, lies whispered
           so soft and high,
             only the dogs can hear.

finding my stride

Today, on one of the prettiest days autumn has given us so far, I went for a run in the park.  At .2 miles I felt completely spent.  Considering I am supposedly training for a 10K, this wasn't very promising.  I pushed on however, racing against the clock and keeping careful track of the .1 mile markers which seemed to come every mile or so. 
About a mile into my run, I ran past a particularly lovely vista, a field full of purple flowers and yellow leaves, framed by rolling hills and brilliant orange autumn trees.  As I ran by, I saw an overgrown side path, leading not past the scene but into it.  And so deciding that I was not making very good time anyway, I decided to follow it.  Occasionally, because it seemed the thing to do in such a beautiful place, I would even lift up my arms and spin or take flying leaps, "wasting" precious energy that could have gotten me closer to my perceived goal. Though beautiful, it was hard work running that path.  As I ran I had to lift my legs high in order not to trip in the tall grasses.   The path circled around the field and eventually brought me back to the gravel trail, which suddenly felt easy to run in comparison. 
It's fun to fill out a phrase in the doing and living that used to be only conceptual.  Today I discovered that "finding your stride" is a real experience, one that I've never really had before as a runner.  After my extra-curricular journey, my body found a rhythm--my legs, my lungs, my arms--and I ran farther than I have in a long time with relative ease.  It felt amazing, and it was wonderful to be able to enjoy creation (including my creaturely self) in a way I just couldn't when I first started my run.
I won't spend long drawing out the metaphor.  For now, it is sufficient to say that it is always worth it to accept God's invitations to take the path of joy, even if it is the longer route or even if it ends up being more difficult than you imagine.    
   
At the end of my run, I saw an old man and an old woman holding hands just beginning the trail.  He was leaning on her for support and cradling a chicken in his arms.  I'm not sure where that scene fits into my allegorical journey, except to say that mystery always has the final word of every metaphor.  And that is the way it should be.